Review: OMG! Button! – Personal Soundboard App for iOS

To start with a clarification, do not let the title fool you: the name of this app is “OMG! Button!” The app is a harkening from he old days of internet based soundboards. You remember them, the pages of voice and sound clips used to prank all the random numbers you would dial on your parent’s land line telephones. We are talking Windows 95 days, when high speed internet just started to creep its way across the world wide web. OMG! Button! is a tribute to those old soundboards of yore and fits conveniently in your pocket as a universal app.

Design and Function

OMG! Button! is one of the simplest apps I have ever reviewed. It is a soundboard. Period. End of review. But it would only be fair to give it the full shake.

The app is navigated with a tabbed button system on the bottom of the screen which links to the full soundboard, user favorited sounds, and information screen. At least 150 sounds must be included in the app and a full list can be found on the OMG! Button! listing page. In contrast to early soundboards, this app stores all of the sounds locally, preventing data usage and an internet connection as a requirement to operate. The problem with local storage, however, is the size of the app rings in at 35.4 MB, which is quite bulky. The main board also as a search bar at the top, which helps find specific sounds without endlessly swiping your way through the alphabetized list.

To save a favorite, simply tap the star next to the desired sound and it is copied in the favorites tab. Holding down a sound button prompts the user with a share menu to send the .mp3 file via email or save in the document directory. Sharing via email works as advertised with an email generated and the file attached as an .mp3. Saving in the document directory did not work according to my tests. The app fails to show up in iTunes as an app that shares documents; consequently, it is not possible to pull the .mp3s directly out of the app using iTunes. See the screen shot below.

The full soundboard is simply a frustrating amalgamation of random sound effects, noises, songs, and quotes from movies, tv shows, and games. The full list is daunting to swipe through because there are so many unorganized files. If the soundboard was divided into sections, it would be much more usable and organized. Using the search bar is the only way to narrow down the list, but that requires the user to know the name of the sound button. Old soundboards of the day, were always specific soundboards that had a specific theme, or movie character, or genre. OMG! Button! simply throws them all in together, on one screen.

Industrial Revolution

So, is there a way to pull something very useful from OMG! Button!? Like the Europeans building an empire from scratch during the Industrial Revolution, we too can build something from nothing. All of these clips can be used as ringtones or alerts on your iPhone, just not as advertised because the document share feature does not work. The trick is turning the .mp3 files into the proper format for your iPhone to recognize them as tones. I’m getting ready to turn the Star Wars Cantina Band into a ringtone right now!

To begin, share the .mp3 file of your choice via email. Pull up the email on your computer and save the file to iTunes… and follow this guide from a previous MacTrast post:

Select the song from OMG! Button! in iTunes, right-click it and select “Get Info”

Click the Options tab and use the “Start Time” and “Stop Time” to control the exact length of the sound file you want. Close the Get Info window.

Right-click the song and select “Create AAC Version”

Right-click the newly created song and select “Show In Finder”

Change the file extension from .m4a to .m4r

Head back to iTunes and right-click the newly created song. Select “Delete” and then click “Remove” to remove the song from the iTunes Library — but then select “Keep File” so the actual ringtone doesn’t get deleted.

Finally, head back to the Finder and double-click the .m4r file. It will automatically add itself to iTunes as a Ringtone, ready to be synced with your iPhone

Conclusion [rating: 2.5/5]

OMG! Button! struggles to make itself worth $.99 as a universal app. It is a soundboard. It allows favorites. It can share the files. In the description it is says a feature is using iTunes to set ringtones using the save document feature, but it does not work. All of this leaves me with, yes the app works, mostly as advertised. Is it a great soundboard? Yes, there are some cool sound clips, but it is very difficult to find them because the boards are not organized individually. If you want to sort through a couple hundred sounds, then go for it.

Pros:

Lots of sounds

Favorites tab separates some from the crowd

If you know what you are doing, you can use them as ringtones

Cons:

An avid Macintosh convert, Jim appreciates the fine, detailed, and progressive products Apple designs. He spent his younger years tinkering with computers, reading about technology, and watching Star Wars. Since 2008, he has worked on improving his Apple arsenal and spends his free time researching the latest gadget trends. A native of the Commonwealth of Virginia, he enjoys the stiff crease on a well-ironed dress shirt and dons a bow tie on a regular basis.